Exaggerated Trail Count

[highpeaksdrifter]

I use to always admire Stowe for saying they had 47 (I think) trails. Now they have the same number of trails, but they report 118.

What ski area do you think exaggerates their trail count the most and which one comes closes to the real deal.

 

[2knees]

someone will mention kmart in 3...........2............1...........

 

[Greg]

I hardly ever even pay attention to it. Kinda like how I ignore "packed powder" on the conditions report.

 

[MRGisevil]

IMO I'd say Magic comes the closest, seeing as they pretty much chopped their list of trails in half (ok maybe not half) in order to keeps it real.

 

[kcyanks1]

someone will mention kmart in 3...........2............1...........

In -1? You already did so no one else has to

Stowe's new report is more informative. Yes, the count is exaggerated, but splitting up the trails makes it more clear which parts of the trails are open.

 

[Zand]

I'll give the nod to Okemo here. You can hit about 6 different "trails" in 1 run without even trying.

 

[billski]

The official Stowe party line (I can't recall where I heard it, but it was a marketing jock at Mt. Mansfield corp.) is because everyone does it, and they singled out Kmart specifically.

OK, how many trails do you see on the map below? I see 15. Do you see more?

 

[RISkier]

The official Stowe party line (I can't recall where I heard it, but it was a marketing jock at Mt. Mansfield corp.) is because everyone does it, and they singled out Kmart specifically.

OK, how many trails do you see on the map below? I see 15. Do you see more?

Thats what I was told by an instructor at Stowe. The marketing folks felt they were loosing business to places with MUCH higher trail counts and both Stowe and Killington get quite a bit of business from British groups. So if you don't know anything about the mountains but you can go to a place with 200+ trails and 3,000+ feet of vertical, or to a place with only 48 trails and around 2300 ft of vertical, which do you choose? Killington clearly has more total miles of trails but Stowe offers more continuous vertical (not counting connectors that go from one peak to another to another. I think Sugarbush has a bit more total mileage than Stowe as well but it's not like the 111 trails at Sugarbush was more than twice as big as the 48 at Stowe. Folks who frequent these forums know that trail counts are pretty meaningless marketing BS, but that doesn't mean things like this don't influence the decisions some folks make as to where they'll take their ski vacation. Whether it actually makes a difference in attracting visitors, I don't know. Clearly the Stowe marketing folks thought so. FWIW, I had really liked the fact that Stowe hung on to the "Great 48." Even when they added a legit new trail (Inspriation) and lift over at Spruce they continued to promote the Great 48. Sad. Last I looked at the list of trail names at Stowe I had no clue where many of the named trails were, and I'm fairly familiar with the layout at Stowe.

 

[AdironRider]

Man if JHole pulled the marketing crap the eastern mtns do, wed have well over 1000 trails. Im not kidding.

Ive gotten to browse the ski patrol map, and there are literally over 2500 different "shots" that are named on the hill. Now given, probably half of them are little rocks or rollovers that got named, but if they wanted to they could easily name over 1000 different trails, especially if they did upper, middle, lower etc like you see back east.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

Man if JHole pulled the marketing crap the eastern mtns do, wed have well over 1000 trails. Im not kidding.

Ive gotten to browse the ski patrol map, and there are literally over 2500 different "shots" that are named on the hill. Now given, probably half of them are little rocks or rollovers that got named, but if they wanted to they could easily name over 1000 different trails, especially if they did upper, middle, lower etc like you see back east.

Somewhat true but 1000 diferent trails? Rendezvous Bowl is huge but is one line all that diferent than another, I don't think so. Much of the in-bounds acreage are the major bowls, I don't think you can have diferent named trails in an open bowl, no one would be able tell one from the other.

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

I always though Huner did a pretty good job of keeping their count real.

 

[MarkC]

Most mountains do stretch the truth in their trail numbers. Personally I think that it would be a better marketing move to be honest to your customers and tell them what you really have. I have to hand it to Magic this year for the quality and truthfulness of their reporting. I wish other mountains would follow this example.

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

Most mountains do stretch the truth in their trail numbers. Personally I think that it would be a better marketing move to be honest to your customers and tell them what you really have. I have to hand it to Magic this year for the quality and truthfulness of their reporting. I wish other mountains would follow this example.

I have to say from a marketing point of view I disagree. Like I said I admire Stowe for keeping it real all those years, but I get why they changed. Lots of people who only ski once in awhile and don't know the deal might mistakenly believe they where a much smaller mountain then their competitors in N. Vermont. losing those skier visits would cut into their profit margins.

 

[snoseek]

Skiable acres is the only number I care about....

 

[BushMogulMaster]

Skiable acres is the only number I care about....

What about mountains with lots of skinny trails?

I personally like to look at mileage if I'm comparing actual amount of skiable terrain in the NE.

 

[Greg]

What about mountains with lots of skinny trails?

Who the hell wants to ski on those?

 

[from_the_NEK]

Who the hell wants to ski on those?

I'm more of a fan of the total boundary to boundary acreage stat. Gives me an idea of the potential of off-the-map glades between trails. Sadly, most resorts do no report this stat.

 

[KingM]

In that case, it's really hard to get a sense of how big an area is without skiing it, and even then, it might take awhile to get a true sense. MRG feels much bigger than it did just a few years ago, as I've "discovered" stuff, improved my ability to ski other trails, etc.